


Companions

by CommonEvilMastermind



Series: I Come To You With Nothing [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Companions, F/M, companion reactions, extended epilogues, requested scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-04
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 10:54:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8203069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommonEvilMastermind/pseuds/CommonEvilMastermind
Summary: Some companion's reactions to the events of "I Come To You With Nothing."Requests are always welcome!





	1. Cassandra

“Yes?” Cassandra says testily when she knocks, which is fair. It’s well into the evening hours and the servants know better than to interrupt the Seeker after she has retired. Unless the castle is actually on fire, Cassandra is to be left _alone._

“It’s me,” the Inquisitor calls through the door. “It’s important.”

 “Inquisitor?” Cassandra blinks as the door swings open.

She is standing in front of the Seeker’s door, barefoot, with a rich bottle of dark red wine swinging in her hands. “Got any glasses?” she says cheerfully, stepping over the threshold.

Cassandra watches her as she collects an empty goblet and a half-full teacup. “Here,” she says, passing the goblet to Cassandra, now brimming with wine. “You’re going to want this. And you should probably sit down.”

“What-”

“No, I mean it,” she says.“You should sit down.”

Cassandra sits in the pillow-filled nook in front of the windowsill, looking both suspicious and bemused.

The Inquisitor grins, plops down next to her and holds her teacup. “To our health,” she says.

“To our health,” Cassandra says slowly, clinking her goblet to the teacup. The Inquisitor downs her entire thing in one long pull and goes for a refill. The wine is fruity, complex, deep, and far too good for Skyhold. Cassandra takes a sip. “Inquisitor...?”

“We’re married.”

“You-”

“Solas and I. We’re. We got married.” She holds out her left hand, including the slim ironwood ring that sits on her third finger.

Cassandra takes a measured drink. “I did read the report,” she says. “You were on a mission. That does not mean you are married.”

“Normally, sure. It wouldn’t.” She rubs her face, finding the words, and is aware of Cassandra plucking the now-empty teacup from her hands. She takes a breath. “We put our real names on the marriage contract.”

“You-?”

“Yeah.”

Cassandra empties her goblet, then puts both glasses firmly on the side table and fills them again. “Tell me everything.”

“Everything?”

_“Everything.”_

She snorts, chews on her lip. Searches for the place to start.

Cassandra is a seasoned warrior; Cassandra knows about waiting.

“It was almost easy.” She rests her head on the windowpane, curling her legs up into the pillows. “Just another part, right? Like the Inquisitor, but- better. Easier. And Solas – I wasn’t kind. I was so angry, so hurt-“

“You were cruel to him?” Cassandra sounds doubtful.

“Yeah.” She stares out of the window, but the mountains are invisible in the darkness behind the keep. All she can see is the whirling snow. “In the worst way.”

“What-“

“I loved him.” She blinks. “I just- I loved him. And I pretended, I pretended that it was alright. That we were alright. I made up this story, it could have been anything, that we were newlyweds in love. And that was our cover, I used our cover to play pretend. To be cruel- to show him…”

“That you loved him.”

“Yeah. No. That I loved him and that – that was what he had given up. I dangled it in front of his face, taunting him-“

“I’m sure-“

“No, Cass.” She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. Solas, he’s – he’s been alone so long. He pretends, so hard, that he doesn’t want, doesn’t need people. Doesn’t need - But the simplest things, and I could see… a bit of him would just, just come undone.” She looks out into the dark, into the whirling snow.

Cassandra watches, silent.

“I would hold his hand,” she says softly. “We would stand together, and I would hold his hand and just – lean into him a little. I would kiss him, just kiss him on the cheek goodbye. I would say to him _my husband_ and…” She pulls in a breath. “He’s not as stoic as he pretends, you know.”

“I do,” Cassandra says slowly.

“Every time, like a knife, digging in-“

“You wanted to show that you love him.”

“I wanted him to _hurt,_ ” she says, the bile heavy on her tongue. “I wanted him to hurt like I was hurting, I wanted him to _know_ how it felt, to be so close to something you desperately wanted, so close, then have it ripped away. I wanted him to _hurt._ I didn’t think, I didn’t stop to realize-” the sound drops off, as if cut by an arrow.

“Realize?” Cassandra’s soft voice is a pebble in the stillness.

Her face is open with misery. “That he was hurting already, far more than he would ever- more than- ” She blows out a breath. “I am not a nice person, Cassandra.”

“Almost as if you are a woman, rather than a god,” the Seeker says wryly.

She twists up her face. “Cassandra. That’s rude.”

“There is a reason I am a soldier, not a diplomat.”

“Hilarious.” But she relaxes a little in the window seat, her bare toes brushing Cassandra’s calf.

“So you were undercover, tormenting your spurned lover-”

“He wasn’t my _lover_ , we never had _sex-”_

“Your spurned lover,” Cassandra repeats loudly. “And now you are married.”

“I – yeah” she says, remembering. “It started to feel - it was real. We weren’t just playing. We both chose, every day, every moment, to believe. We wanted so badly, to be Yosef and Esther. To pretend, for a while. Before everything comes to an end.”

“Before Corypheus comes to an end,” Cassandra corrects.

She waves her hand. “They wanted to throw us a wedding. Fine. Not fine. Cass, I wanted, I wanted it so much. And it wasn’t real. And it was, it was wonderful, and it hurt and then-” She swallows, and her voice threatens to shake. “And then I saw- I saw him. And I _knew,_ I wanted – no matter what happens, I wanted - ” She is smiling, tears in her eyes. “I walked up the aisle and I asked him, “Solas?” I whispered it in his ear. And he – he said yes.”

Cassandra’s eyes are red. “So you were wed. The lie becomes the truth.”

“Yeah.” She smiles. “Yeah.”

Cassandra sniffs loudly and pours the last of the bottle into the cups. She holds the goblet up high. “To your marriage,” she says, voice cracking. “To your happiness!”

She raises her teacup in salute, and they drink.


	2. Iron Bull

“Solas,” Iron Bull says cheerfully, and it puts him on high alert. “Join me for a walk.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No, of course not,” says Iron Bull. Solas charges three spells and puts another four on standby.

The danger is not apparent. Skyhold is waiting with impatience, on high alert for when Corypheus will strike. One way or another, they all know that this chapter of the Inquisition is coming to a close. Bull takes him out over the ramparts, where the winter wind bites through his clothes. Bull never seems to notice, despite his partially-nude state.

“So, you chose her,” Iron Bull says conversationally. “But you haven’t told her.”

Solas considers protesting. He considers playing the ignorant fool. Neither tactic seems likely to succeed. Instead, he says, “And what is it I have not told her?” and refuses to let his shoulder blades rise with the increase in tension.

“Why you left her in the first place,” Bull says. “The thing that’s been twisting you up in knots since you open your eyes and realized she was a woman under all that sass. You chose her, but you haven’t told her. And you should.”

“I fail to understand why it is any of your business,” Solas says lightly. “If it is true, it is a matter between the Inquisitor and myself and does not require your meddling.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong.” Iron Bull leans against the battlements, crossing his arms and scowling. “You weren’t there after whatever happened at Crestwood. You weren’t the one who had to pick up the pieces and hope there was still a whole woman somewhere under all that mess.”

“I appreciate everything you did for her-”

“No. You don’t.” And The Iron Bull stood up straight, looming. “You weren’t there. That’s my point. Whatever it is that drove you away, I don’t actually care. She’s not just any woman, Solas.”

“If you think I am unaware-”

“She’s not just any woman. She’s the Inquisitor. And she didn’t have the luxury of sulking in a book for a few months. She has to save the world, and we were the ones who had to help her stay together while she tried to get over your sorry ass.”

“If you would kindly make your point.” Solas is freezing anger.

“My point is, I’m her friend. Like it or not, I’m your friend too. She expects you to keep your promise, Fadewalker. And here’s what I think – if you don’t tell her, it’s just going to keep eating away at you. It’s going to eat up everything she loves until you’re a small shell of a man, too scared to keep his own promises. You need to tell her or it’s never going to work.”

“It is none of your concern!” Solas shouts, temper snapping.

“I’m her _bodyguard,_ it’s my concern if you’re going to put her in danger-”

“It is a private matter-”

“Then perhaps you need to be more private about where you wear that ring,” Iron Bull says in a soft, dangerous voice.

Solas looks death at the qunari, and consciously does not made a fist with the fingers of his left hand. Instead he turns, slowly, with a lift of his chin, and walks away.

“Solas.”

He does not stop.

“I don’t know shit about elf weddings. But congratulations.”

That makes him pause, raise an eyebrow. He does not turn around.

Iron Bull tosses something that lands at a clatter near his ankles. “A present. A knife dipped in death shade, one of the few things that can stop a full-grown Qunari.”

“A peculiar choice,” Solas comments.

“Not really. Because if you hurt her again, I’m going to come after you.” The qunari starts to move away.

“Iron Bull.” He turns, their eyes meet. “You should.”

“Oh?”

“Yes.”

Iron Bull grins widely. “Good. Welcome to the club.”

“The club?”

“Sure. People who trust that the Inquisition will kill them if they go evil. It’s a surprisingly big club.”

“Is it, now?” They are walking together along the battlements. The dagger is lying abandoned behind them.

“Sure.” Iron Bull shrugs. “You. Me. Cole. Ranier. Dorian on his bad days. Sometimes Madame de Fer, though she’s never going to admit it. Cassandra.”

“Cassandra?”

“Because of the Lord Seeker, you know. The jackass who Cole killed.”

“Lucien?”

“That’s the asshole.” Iron Bull turns to go back to the Herald’s Rest, pauses. “Let me buy you a drink. The good stuff. Congratulations.”

“I was unaware that the Rest contained any such thing.”

“You just gotta know how to ask.” Bull claps Solas on the back so hard, it drives the wind from his lungs. “Or lower your standards.”

It is, Solas thinks, not the worst outcome. Not at all.


	3. Cole

The first moment she is left alone (which takes some time, she is the Inquisitor and has been gone for months) she is hit by a boy-shaped hammer who smells of rainwater and then hops around her joyously.

“Ow.” He had knocked her on her tailbone on the hard stone of the battlements. “Cole, what-?”

“I am happy!” The spirit-boy crows. “I gave you a hug because I am happy, and you are happy, and he is happy! You think you did wrong but now it is right and the hurt is better and I am so happy! Hugs,” he stops dancing and looks at her seriously, “are a thing that you give when you are happy.”

“This is, okay, that’s true,” she says, climbing to her feet.

“Kisses are another thing you give when you are happy,” he tells her. “But Solas would be angry.”

She laughs and lifts off his hat, standing on tiptoe in order to kiss him on the forehead. “I’m glad you approve.”

Cole’s face lights up again. “The hurt goes so deep, ruined and rotting, but you make things bright again. Where you are, there is light. The light, sunlight, twining in her hair as she laughs. She looks at me and it’s not a dream. She smiles, and I remember. There is joy here, in life. She is real, and I love her so much that it hurts.” Cole grins at her. “He never wants to take his ring off again.”

“It was close,” she admits. “It almost didn’t happen.”

“He loves you.” Cole pops out of existence, popping back in on top of the battlements, feet dangling. “But he worries you won’t mean it, when you know. I told him that you will, that a promise is a _promise_. But he worries, and then it goes dark again.”

“He does like to worry,” she says, biting her lip. Not asking what she wants to.

“I wouldn’t tell you. He has to do it. But he’ll tell you, and then it will all be better.”

“Will it?”

Cole slides down the battlements and lands on his toes in front of her. He looks at her from under his hat, and his blue eyes see farther than she can imagine. “You love him. Not who he was, but who he is. Calm and cranky, the spirits and the stars.” Cole nods, and his hat bobs on his head. “Yes. It will be better.”

“Okay.” She pulls in a breath. “I’ll ask him.”

The spirit-boy grins and vanishes, but not before she feels the brush of a kiss on her forehead.


End file.
